


Look at your eyes, saltwater springs, what handkerchief could dry them?

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If child abuse  is a trigger avoid this story. I'm not kidding. Though I hope it is ultimately uplifting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look at your eyes, saltwater springs, what handkerchief could dry them?

**Author's Note:**

> * * *

  
When she was a kid she whined a lot — sniffled over everything, but there were never any real tears.

"You're a crocodile," her Mum said, slurred, coming home late and smelling like cheap wine, "a filthy lizard and I wish you'd never been born."

But then, later, Mum would snuggle with her in front of the telly. "Doro, Doro, Dorothy…" she would hum, gently rubbing the creases of her daughter's ear. They would watch badly animated cartoons and eat popcorn, and they would both be happy, if only for a moment.

When she was six and Mum's boyfriend, his name was Donald, came into her room, she didn't cry; She screamed. She would always remember the way his eyes slanted, even though their colour was eventually lost to the haze of memories. She would always remember his wolfish sneer, the sandpaper feel of his stubble against her hidden skin, and his voice telling her how stupid she was: How she was a whiny little bitch and should just shut up. She would always remember how it felt to be eaten from the inside.

Later, when her Mum wouldn't believe her, that hurt more, and she cried real tears.

But she didn't cry the next time Donald came to see her, or the other boyfriends who followed. She had learned.

She wouldn't cry again for years, and when a blast of hate and fire stole the only thing she had left to cling to in her ruined life she remembered running, running, running. Her bare feet pounding the hard concrete to reach Manisha's flat. The smell of smoke and singed flesh was strong and she threw up again and again, and she wanted to die. But she didn't cry. Not yet.

She didn't cry when Manisha's revenge got away from her, and she accidentally blew up the high school art room — even though she broke her arm and burned herself, and the pain howled at her from every nerve; It was only pain, and she had been through worse.

She didn't cry when the consequences of that act (she lied glibly about her purposes and said she was being _artistic_ ) caught up with her. When she was suspended, and her chemistry scholarship — the only hope she ever had — was snatched away. She didn't cry, though her insides burned and she was being eaten again, and her Mum yelled at her and told her, as she had always told her:

"You're useless, and it would have been better if you had never been born!"

She didn't cry when the timewinds swept into her bedroom and carried her to a far-off world. It was a new start, even if she did muck it up.

Ace didn't cry again until she was sixteen and stood against a wall, facing down a firing squad with no chance of escape. She was sixteen and far from home and about to die when she hadn't been born yet, and she cried because she remembered the soft comfort of watching cartoons with her Mum when she was a little girl, and all she wanted was to run back to that single moment of happiness; to have another chance.

She cried again when the Doctor called her "an emotional cripple", because she had thought he loved her, but everyone she loved betrayed her in the end — her Mum, Manisha for dying, damn her! Damn them all! She was Ace; she didn't need anyone.

Except she did.

And, later, after all was forgiven, she cried again because she was wrong, and someone cared. On another adventure, when two motorcycles crashed together and she thought the Doctor was gone, she allowed herself, for the first time in her life, real grief, which was wiped away when he came back to life, because _he_ would never betray her.

When she left him to go back to Perivale she didn't cry. She was fifty-eight years old with long silver hair and eyes that had wandered across the universe. She was strong, and fit, and confident, and had faced down evil from the dawn of time (as well as the more ordinary type that grew in the hearts of men). She had faced the fears of her own heart, and come to grips with herself, and her past. She was Ace, and she loved him and he loved her, and she left because it was time. She didn't cry.

But when she hugged him her face came away damp, and she knew that her Mum had been wrong.

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=16363>


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